


Limits, Parts

by ideallyqualia



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fusion, Alternate Universe - Houseki no Kuni Fusion, Body Horror, F/F, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-30
Updated: 2018-06-30
Packaged: 2019-05-31 07:05:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,775
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15114293
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ideallyqualia/pseuds/ideallyqualia
Summary: Yachi is worried that she might break easily. She goes to Kiyoko for help.





	Limits, Parts

**Author's Note:**

> For a sports anime fest bonus round 1 [prompt](https://sportsfest.dreamwidth.org/7464.html?thread=207400#cmt207400):  
> TIME: Patrol  
> PLACE: Iceland (additional tag was houseki no kuni au so...)
> 
> I haven't read the hnk manga in a super long time so if it sounds like I pulled stuff about how gems work out of my ass, i did.

Kiyoko's body was so fragile that she couldn't patrol, or even contribute to patrolling. She was still one of the most beautiful gems Yachi had ever seen.

Kiyoko kept out of sight most of the time. Between her beauty, her weak gem body, and her aloofness, no one wanted to approach her, either. Yachi only remembered her from a brief glance in passing, Kiyoko walking in a careful hurry instead of running to be alone.

Kiyoko was young, close to Yachi's age compared to everyone else. Yachi was the youngest. When Yachi went out for her first patrol a few weeks ago, she experienced her first fracture, part of her leg cracking after she tripped on uneven dirt.

"You chipped really easily," Takeda told her quietly. He frowned stiffly, trying to hide his concern but failing.

That gave Yachi the idea to talk to Kiyoko. Finding Kiyoko was a problem, but the even bigger problem was working up the nerve to talk to her. Yachi postponed the concern for that as she looked for her.

The gems never strayed too far from their home. It wasn't a rule, but it was an unspoken principle they followed, and Yachi didn't let distance even cross into her consideration. Kiyoko had to be close by.

Yachi visited a cliff overlooking the ocean, the wide open grasslands, and a rocky plateau; Kiyoko wasn't at any of them. Yachi went to the beach next, but by that time she was already losing hope. She almost missed the sound ringing out from the cove.

Yachi made her way into the cave, following the trail of the sound. It couldn't be called noise. It was like the beauty of a gem in something that could be heard, but Yachi didn't have the words to describe it. She could imagine that it came at a wind's hum, all the pleasantness of the low range of the wind without the hollowness and the weather.

Inside Yachi found Kiyoko sitting on a rock, her mouth open with her hands out. The sounds were coming from her, and they continued to pour out, melding her voice with the qualities of the wind.

Yachi gasped. Kiyoko stiffened, and when she saw Yachi standing in the way to the world, the path blocked, she moved back on the rock with guarded eyes on Yachi.

"No, wait! I didn't mean -- um. What was that?" Yachi shrunk in the cove entryway, clutching her hands together.

"What?"

"The sound you were making."

Kiyoko regarded her for a few moments. This was where Yachi's troubles began.

For all of the vague stories Yachi's heard from other gems, it amounted to something untouchable. No one wanted to approach Kiyoko, too awed by her beauty and wary of her weakness. It made Yachi afraid to approach her. If the stronger, older, wiser, more amazing gems couldn't bring themselves to talk to her and figure out how to handle her, Yachi didn't know how she could possibly do anything herself.

"It's called singing," Kiyoko said quietly.

"It's...what? What's that?" Yachi asked, her voice louder, getting braver.

"Singing. It's when you use your voice and control it to make sounds into a pattern." Kiyoko redirected her gaze to Yachi. "Did you come here for something?"

"Oh! Yeah, I did." After speaking, Yachi's face fell. She didn't know how to bring up the topic.

"It's...fine, you know," Kiyoko said, her voice still soft and magical. Yachi almost missed the sad quality to it. "If you want to leave."

"Wait what? Why?"

"Don't you hate the sound of a gem breaking? Everyone does." Kiyoko raised her leg, revealing cracks running down to her foot. Some of them were shallow, barely exposing anything past the foundation powder, but all of them shined with the deep dark color of her hair, a purple wavering on black.

"That's actually what I came here for." Yachi moved to show that she had a crack in her leg too, but she looked and remembered it was fixed. She ended up fumbling to keep her balance.

Kiyoko maintained her gaze without speaking, waiting patiently for Yachi to finish.

Yachi pointed to her leg instead. "I went on my first patrol recently, and I tripped and chipped my leg. I heard this happens to you all the time so I was wondering if you have any advice." Yachi's mouth stretched into several different expressions until settling on a frown. "Gems make noises when they crack?"

"When they break. Especially when gems crash into each other." Kiyoko closed her eyes. "I haven't gone on a patrol in a long time."

"I went on one with Hinata, but he's...he's too fast and...all over the place," Yachi finished, gesturing with her hands by throwing them everywhere. "Who did you used to patrol with?"

Kiyoko opened her eyes and sat straighter in remembrance. "Asahi or Suga."

Yachi sighed. Her attention drifted to the rocks of the cave floor for a moment, anything to distract her from the unnatural heat in her face.

It really was too much, talking to Kiyoko. Her grace was slow, she barely moved, but she knew exactly what she wanted with what she was doing, holding herself straight or moving without scraping herself on her rock seat. The way she held her gaze had a kind of tension that made Yachi need to look away.

"Are you going to patrol again?" Kiyoko asked.

"Yeah. If I chip or crack again, though..." Yachi grimaced. "I don't know what I'll do instead of patrolling."

"Another chip or crack isn't bad. It's when you break completely that it's a problem."

"What if I break, then?"

"Are you asking for advice on what to do in the moment, or afterwards, when you don't know if you can continue to patrol?"

"Both," Yachi said with a stammer.

Kiyoko's face hardened. "It hurts. You have to bear with it and keep moving. Move on. But only you can tell if you can't patrol anymore." She crossed her hands in her lap. "There's not much else to talk about. There's no secret for dealing with them."

Yachi nodded. "I understand. ...I'm going to go back now." She pointed to the mouth of the cave. "Do you want to... Should I help you back too?"

Kiyoko glanced up and paused in thought, and then she shrugged and motioned her closer. "Help me."

Yachi didn't think things through. As Kiyoko directed her to slip her arm around Kiyoko's shoulders, she felt Kiyoko's back, body, and warmth. It wasn't the kind of warmth that came from animals or the sun, but the kind that lingered in the shared space of contact. Kiyoko herself was a little cold.

Despite her tendency to break, she was strong, too. Yachi could feel in every brush of their arms and shoulders how hard she was, like a rock. Yachi had no idea why she was also weak, although she was biased and had no experience for judgment whatsoever.

Making contact worse was the rough quality of Kiyoko's body. Yachi thought it would be smooth like the polished gleam of her dark hair, but she felt almost as rough as gravel. Yachi wondered if she could be imagined like a rock with cracks in it, rough from the cracks, and if you hit the right place weakened by the cracks, it could break --

Yachi swallowed. That explained things.

Since Yachi was prone to tripping, the walk turned into an affair of holding on to each other for support so neither of them would fall. Kiyoko was careful with her steps, placing her feet on patches of grass or soft dirt. Yachi didn't realize why she was walking at a strange pace until she accidentally stomped on a barren piece of floor that was nothing but rock, sending a shivering crack up her leg.

Yachi sucked in a breath. It didn't hurt, it felt more like a gust of cold wind, but sharing that feeling with the sensation of Kiyoko's arm around her brought on a shudder.

When they arrived home, Takeda did a double take. "Shimizu? You were out?"

"I was just getting fresh air."

"You were in a cave," Yachi said.

Kiyoko shot her a betrayed look without any depth to it, playful like a joke. It made Yachi's heart swell.

"Is that so..." Takeda's attention went back to the files in his hands.

Kiyoko stood and faced Yachi. "The next time you patrol, come get me. I'll go with you. There's something about you I want to understand."

Yachi's stomach jumped into her throat. Takeda, however, shook his head.

"That sounds like a terrible idea. Why do you want to go?"

"I don't think Yachi has a problem with chipping and being easy to break, she has a problem with being clumsy," Kiyoko explained.

Takeda paused. "Interesting."

"I'm clumsy...?" Yachi asked quietly. Kiyoko nodded at her, and Yachi mentally burst into flames when she realized Kiyoko heard her.

"I'm still not sure you should be going," Takeda said.

"We'll go with another patrol team nearby, an actual team that can fight," Kiyoko said.

"So what you're saying is, you want to go on a walk with Yachi and bodyguards."

"Yes," Kiyoko said fearlessly.

Takeda let out a short laugh. "Alright, I'll tell Kageyama and Sugawara to accompany you later. If anything happens, I won't expect either of you to actually fight."

"I know. I would never go alone," Kiyoko said. "Thank you." She left, and Yachi followed her out after a quick wave to Takeda.

"What do you mean, I'm clumsy?" Yachi asked her.

"You don't watch where you're going. Earlier I had to stop you several times from stepping on something you could trip on or shatter your foot on. If a really sharp rock goes into the bottom of your foot, it could do a lot of damage," Kiyoko said as she walked ahead.

Yachi gawked, and then stumbled to keep up with her. "I thought you needed help to walk?"

Kiyoko's mouth quirked. "I don't. I just wanted to walk close. ...It's nice to have another person to be with, though. Especially if something happens. Usually I go alone."

Yachi couldn't think of anything to say, and they walked in silence until Kiyoko decided to sit outside on the stone steps.

Kageyama and Suga approached them. "Takeda said you wanted to go out on a patrol with us?" Kageyama asked.

Yachi jolted up straight. "He already told you?"

"Yeah." Suga scratched the back of his head.

"Patrolling with four people sounds like a terrible idea," Kageyama said. Suga caught his eye and shook his head.

"It's not really with four people, it's us two, but you're going to be close enough so we can call you," Yachi said, fumbling through her explanation.

"Fine. Let's go then," Kageyama said.

"Already?" Kiyoko asked.

"Why wait?"

"You...have a point." Kiyoko smiled.

Suga led them into the grass field surrounding their home, and Kiyoko and Yachi stayed there while Suga and Kageyama moved on to patrol the area close by but further from home than theirs.

"Show me how you walk," Kiyoko told Yachi.

Yachi jerked. "What?"

"Walk in front of me. I want to see if you know how to walk and keep your eyes out for enemies without tripping over something. You won't be able to tell if your eyes are glued to the ground."

"Oh." Yachi looked down at her feet. "You think?"

Kiyoko pulled out the sword from her waist. "You learned to fight, right?"

Yachi swallowed and nodded. "Ukai taught me."

"He might've taught you the basics, but you need good balance and senses to fight, too." Kiyoko rubbed at her chin in thought for a moment, and then gestured out at the expanse of field in front of them. "Run to that tree over there and back," she said, pointing at a tree.

"O-okay." Yachi breathed in and took off.

She couldn't remember the last time she ran. She picked her feet up higher when she kicked them to move, and she didn't remember how high to kick them, or how much weight to put into her steps. She thought so much about everything that she didn't pay attention to the ground.

Her feet didn't have anything to stand on when she missed the knoll in the ground dropping off a few meters above another level of grass below. She fell forward, barely able to get her hands in front of herself in time -- which didn't do anything to lessen the damage.

When Kiyoko reached her she crouched. "I'm so sorry, Yachi, I didn't think about that hill--"

"It's okay! Nothing broke." Yachi dusted chips and grass off herself. "It looks like I just chipped."

"Only chipping?" Kiyoko drew herself in thought again. "That's what happened the last time you fell..."

Before Yachi could confirm her words, the familiar eerie chime of the moon rung in the air, and Yachi and Kiyoko both winced.

"Suga!" Kiyoko yelled.

Kageyama and Suga were already on their way, sprinting toward them at an incredible speed, their weapons drawn.

Kiyoko tugged on Yachi's shirt. "Let's hide behind the hill."

Yachi nodded, too shocked to say anything. It was one thing to talk about the moon people like they were a fact of life, part of the world, but it was another to encounter them and face them in battle with the rush of adrenaline and the shock of immediate fear.

While they hid, a few stray moon weapons landed in the ground near them. The glare from a harpoon gleaming in the sunlight, like it was gold or made from a gem, made Yachi look away.

The sunspot grew. More moon people poured out of it, and while it wasn't enough to overwhelm Kageyama and Suga and corner them to lose, some still slipped past them. One of them got close enough to aim at them, and an arrow struck Kiyoko in her stomach. Yachi went cold all over -- not the cold-warmth of Kiyoko's hand on her back, but the cold of all the warmth leaving her body. The sound of a gem shattering made Yachi's heart go cold, too. It was pure noise.

Yachi scrambled to grab the parts of Kiyoko left over, forgetting about being gentle. Another arrow shot at them, but Yachi moved Kiyoko until she was hovering over her, her back exposed to the open air. The arrow hit her arm instead. It ripped a searing lance of pain up and down her arm to her shoulder.

Yachi almost jumped to her feet with her sword to attack, but she hesitated and finally thought. That was the worst thing to do in this situation. If she left this place there would be nothing between Kiyoko and the moon people. She held on tighter to Kiyoko in resolution, not moving her closer but hardening her hands and muscles until she felt like she couldn't move.

Yachi squeezed her eyes shut. She could hear Kageyama and Suga yelling in the background, but she stopped paying attention to them and they faded away. They didn't enter her mind again until she felt Suga's hand on her shoulder.

"Yachi? It's alright, they're gone," he told her.

Yachi relaxed and glanced down at Kiyoko. She was chipped and scratched in several places from Yachi moving her around, but she was still mainly in two pieces. Other, smaller pieces were lying on the grass.

Kageyama wordlessly picked up the small scattered pieces. Yachi rearranged Kiyoko's top half in her arms as carefully as possible.

"Shimizu?" Yachi asked in a quiet voice.

Kiyoko tilted her head up and smiled. "You're strong after all. You're only chipped, nothing else."

Yachi inspected her arms. "You're right. You were right."

"Let's get her to Takeda," Suga said. He offered to carry Kiyoko's second half, and together the three of them got her to Takeda's office.

Takeda pinned Kiyoko with a look of disapproval. "You don't have to be so reckless with this, you know," he said.

"What do you mean?" Yachi asked.

"She's a little obsessed with gem structure, especially with learning about hardness. Her hunches are usually right though."

"Oh." Yachi sat down.

"We're going to go back on patrol," Suga said. He left with Kageyama back the way they came.

"I'll stay." Yachi waved at them as they left. Kiyoko was too tired to speak after being broken from her stomach, but Yachi promised to wait for her to wake up from Takeda's assembly treatment so they could talk more. She wanted to hear her voice.

**Author's Note:**

> (General A/N): Not looking for concrit; don't leave any.


End file.
